Despised is despised

I sometimes see indignation about claims that atheists are a despised minority, on the grounds that other despised minorities had it much worse. That was one of Karla McLaren’s many claims.

As you may recall, this word [“accommodationist”] was first used by black Americans in the Voting Rights era against people who were seen as being too subservient and too accommodating to whites. I could write a whole ‘nother post about how interesting it is for atheists to imagine that their struggle is similar to that of African Americans.

Long after blacks and Jews have made great strides, and even as homosexuals gain respect, acceptance and new rights, there is still a group that lots of Americans just don’t like much: atheists.

That’s the first line of the piece. Well: is it false?

It seems to me to be obviously not false. The air is thick with complaints about atheists, considered as a group and considered guilty as members of the group. This is not to say that atheists are as despised as any other group, nor is it to say that they are as badly treated as any other group. It’s just to say that they are despised as a group. It’s funny, in a way, that it’s often the very people who are calling atheists names are the ones scorning the idea that atheists are despised. McLaren is a good example of that, too. A torrent of atheist-bashing plus a smug dismissal of the idea that atheists get bashed.

As with other national minority groups, atheism is enjoying rapid growth…designed to overcome the understandable reluctance to admit atheism have found that as many as 60 million Americans — a fifth of the population — are not believers. Our nonreligious compatriots should be accorded the same respect as other minorities.

Why are we generally disliked in America, I wonder? I suspect that it may be for different reasons for different people. Is it because we do not subscribe to the same religious faith as the majority do? Is it because of our pungent criticism of those who profess having religious convictions? Is it because we are relatively unknown in our real-life communities? Is it because we make too little of an effort to discredit stereotypes about us?Maybe there are other reasons that you all could come up with, and it’d be great to see them. I am personally interested in changing the fact that atheists are generally disliked in the USA. Depending on the reason(s) that you believe we are disliked, you may believe that it is inevitable or necessary that we are disliked. I sense that dislike of atheists is more composed of ignorance of atheists than anything else, and that that ignorance can be overcome. I sense that most religious people can accept someone who does not profess their faith – divisions among denominations and other religions serve to test their personal convictions all the time – but that they are apprehensive toward a group they know little-to-nothing about. What are atheists capable of, they wonder? Are atheists amoral too? Does atheism = satanism? These are questions that can be answered by fellow religious people in ways that we strongly object to, but they can also be answered in real-life personal terms by atheists themselves. I could be wrong, but I think that dislike of atheists stems from an ignorance on what it means to be an atheist and what to expect from us in moral terms. What do you guys think?

The meat of the matter, as explained in the article, is that there is no reason on earth atheists should even be mildly distrusted. We are consistently among the best citizens on earth. Huh. Maybe that’s it.

Andrew, I suspect it’s some of all of those things. I also suspect (but I don’t know, and I’d love to see a really well-designed study test these things) it has something to do with the peculiarly American idea that belief in God is the most reliable indicator of moral character. That, in turn, probably has to do with our peculiar religious history, and the fact that our founding as a secular state actually promoted the flourishing of religion rather than taming it, as state religions such as that in the UK have experienced.

Every society has a degree of tribalism, but in America our tribalism is expressed most fervently through religion. I don’t know if we have a net surplus of tribalism as compared to other Western countries, but it sure seems that way.

I sense that dislike of atheists is more composed of ignorance of atheists than anything else, and that that ignorance can be overcome.

Yes, it’s ignorance. Hence the need for visibility, for understanding. Here in England, church attendance is practically non-existent. But how high is church attendance in America? I assume it’s very high, in certain states, most likely those bible belt states. There is your problem: the church. The church keeps the masses ignorant, and that is why America is so torn between two philosophies: the progressive and the conservative.

Egbert – church attendance is higher here, but not as high as people think. I can’t be arsed to find it, but there was a recent study that compared people’s self-reported church attendance to their actual church attendance (they counted cars in church parking lots over a period of time). The result? You guessed it. People consistently lied and said they went to church way more often than they did. So ingrained is the idea of religion as a badge of citizenship people feel compelled to lie to an anonymous researcher and inflate their piety.

Your polemical rage, if you try to use it in a conversation, can make you look scary and mad-intolerant. Your polemical despair, if you try to use it to convert your religious friends, can make you seem constitutionally incapable of seeing the bright side of life (or the importance of religion for people who may have nothing else). And your polemical terror, if you try to blog about it, can make you look like a wild-eyed doomsday prophet (who is nearly always wrong).

Where on earth did she find all these things in the so-called “fractious four”? ‘Scary and mad-intolerant’? ‘Polemical rage’? ‘Polemical despair’? ‘Polemical terror’? Really, this person needs a few lessons in reading and comprehension, and then one or two lessons in clear thinking, and then, after all that, a reasonably stringent discipline regarding English prose style. Who is this guy, Chris Steadman, anyway? If he thinks this is worthwhile, he’s a bit of jerk, whatever other claim to fame he might have.

What Josh said for #6. Religious belief is linked in our culture to moral value and personal character. Of course, one of the primary focuses of modern atheism is breaking that link. Which I think double pisses people off.

Chris Stedman is a very nice atheist who does super-important interfaithing, which makes him more moral than the rest of us. It also makes him more likable. He keeps careful track of how much we’re Not Helping because we’re not interfaithing with him on Sundays cleaning up roadside trash or building chicken coops for orphans.

Is it because of our pungent criticism of those who profess having religious convictions?

Much more likely it’s (partly) because of our reputation for that, which is being zealously fostered by countless gnu-bashers who persistently ignore the distinction between criticism of beliefs and criticism of people who have the beliefs – as you just did there.

Is it because we make too little of an effort to discredit stereotypes about us?

Well not in my case! But it’s uphill work with all the gnu-bashers working double shifts to re-enforce stereotypes about us.

I think actually another reason is that (many) people think god=love and so that atheists are sort of enemies of that. That we’re about coldness, and a sort of desert of feeling. I’m saying “sort of” too much because I can’t find the exact words for what I mean.

I suppose in that sense I get why Chris Stedman puts so much emphasis on demonstrating that we’re the opposite of that (or at least that we can be – that it’s not essential to atheism).

It is pretty easy to understand why atheists are dumped on. We are an out group that all religious people can agree on, people “interfaith” groups can gang up on as unrighteous. So, in that regard, Chris Steadman, is trying to do a good thing by trying to bring us into the fold, so that we can be part of the in group. I don’t know if that can really work, if we can be accepted as an in group among the religious, but even it can happen to some small degree, at what price? The price of our right to speak up in our own interest? I’m thinking the “cure” might be as bad as the original problem.

Andy, right, and more than that. If you think god=love then you think the world is saturated in love, and thus that people who don’t see that must be somehow alienated from love, opposed to love, inimical to love.

Sure, lots of Americans don’t like atheists. For a comparison with Jews or blacks to hold true, however, one would have to see institutional prejudice against them. And I haven’t spotted it. The Conservatives admire Krauthammer. Liberal applaud Bill Maher. Libertarians like Penn and Teller; socialists love Chomsky and as for objectivists, they worship Ayn Rand. People laugh at Seth MacFarlane; cheer on Lance Armstrong; prostrate themselves before the airbrushed image of Brad Pitt…

This won’t apply to lots of folk in the Bible belt, I guess, but there’s precious little one can do about that. God’s stamped so deeply in their consciousness it might as well be genetic.

Yes, I saw those figures, and so it shows that Christian churches are associated with morality, success, community. People with doubts or different beliefs, afraid to speak out, for fear of being rejected and outcast.

Sigh. Why is it that some people are simply incapable of understanding that there are parallels in discriminatory attitudes when it comes to atheists, people of color, and gays? Why do you insist it’s a zero-sum game, that the atheist issue must be a mirror image of the others or it’s wholly invalid. That’s patent nonsense.

Beyond that, you grudgingly admit it might be worse in the South. Guess what – it is. I’ve lived there. There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of being elected to public office or avoiding being shunned on the street if you admit you’re an atheist. This country is made up of people whose real life experiences are far different from Seth MacFarlane’s. Besides – white people paid to see Lena Horne and other black performers, but that didn’t mean racism didn’t exist. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense.

No, of course he wouldn’t Ophelia. But he’s beat this drum before, and apparently he doesn’t contemplate the pushback. Something’s stuck in your craw about this issue, Ben, and it looks pretty emotional to me. I wish you’d stop it, because it’s insulting.

I recently had to hear a long rant about how gay people have it better than black people, so they don’t have a civil rights case either. One wonders what the cut off is.

Maybe there’s a just world fallacy here, where it’s assumed that the less outspoken ones probably don’t suffer, while the more outspoken ones are asking for it, or deserve it. False on both counts, but maybe it’s plausible to people who care more about a veneer of harmony than about an unwavering focus on justice.

I posted a bit of a summary of the goings on, with Matzke, BCSE, and various other things, including the stedman blog and Paul W’s summary etc.

The responses that followed:

“My God, it really is a fucking cult.” From an educated guy who should know better.

And “Do atheists believe in love?” from a guy who’s posts vary in quality wildly.

For a British forum, with a few Aussies, and what I would guess is a handful of believers amongst a vast majority of non-believers of various stripes, it’s fascinating to see the wider atheist/agnostic population appear in miniature.

Any discussion of institutional prejudice against atheists (in America!) that doesn’t mention the multiple polls that show atheists being the least-trusted and least-likely-to-be-voted-for group; the fact that the only open non-believer in Congress is Representative Pete Stark (who also identifies as a unitarian); the fact that our government openly endorses theism on its currency and in its pledge; and the fact that the most politically powerful atheists have been the ones most eager to cozy up with domestic theocrats and launch wars with religious overtones (Karl Rove)… frankly, that discussion isn’t serious.

I’m sorry if you’ve had a rough time in the South (and, yes, if you receive abuse on the grounds of [lack of] faith that’s no different from sexuality or race). My point is that such bigots are still mired in the religious prejudice of older times, where Christianity was as ubiquitous as turkeys at thanksgiving and an atheist was someone only Russians loved. Doubtless, those are times that need a changin’ but they’re not indicative of where the country’s headed.

The difference between structural prejudice and common bigotry is that the first demands reform of legislature. (Thus, the civil rights movement was necessary.) If there was a similar scenario with atheists you wouldn’t see so many of ’em on all levels of U.S. society. (And yes, Ophelia, you can observe a nation’s culture without living in it – as far as I know you’ve not restricted your gaze to the States). Perhaps citing sitcoms and cyclists is flippant but my point was that being atheistic doesn’t stop you going places. It’s not something that’ll have you sent to, er – whatever’s your equivalent of Coventry.

When your President is someone who relaxes the abortion laws, makes things (a little) easier for gays, sings hymns to Islam in his speeches to the Middle East — well, whatever you think of the state it’s not fanatically Christian. I’m not an atheist or an American so maybe it’s not my business to lecture (hell, I can’t remember what inspired me to do so in the first place – put it down to incontinent commenting). I just think you risk becoming too defensive. For example, that post by Karla McLaren – whoever she is – was pretty darned obnoxious but would have been read by less people than I can get to listen to me sing. If everything is interpreted as something close to warlike then you’ll end up raging at eachother like the old Trotskyite groups when there’s never been a better time to argue and be active in the public sphere.

But even I can tell I sound like a concern troll. So I’ll skulk back to my lair.

Interestingly, gays, blacks and Jews were mentioned, but not women? What about women’s rights, and the comparisons between male privilege and religious privilege, which still persists today among us men?

Mr. Six (may I call you that?) – I have no psychic abilities; my characterization of “grudging” comes from how you’re post struck me.

The difference between structural prejudice and common bigotry is that the first demands reform of legislature. (Thus, the civil rights movement was necessary.) If there was a similar scenario with atheists you wouldn’t see so many of ‘em on all levels of U.S. society.

You are aware, are you not, that many states still have unconstitutional laws on the books barring atheists from public office? You are aware, are you not, that broad swathes of Americans really don’t think they know any atheists? And that Hollywood is not a reflection of the real world?

You do not, in fact, “see so many of them on all levels of society.” Are you just not reading? Because themann above pointed out we have one, one single solitary self-identified atheist in our Congress of 435 people, and none in our Senate.

Yes, you can observe the culture, but when people who actually live here take the time to tell you that it’s not as it seems from the outside, you have a good-faith obligation to take them seriously. So far, you haven’t.

You’re the one who’s cast this as some sort of contest between the struggles of blacks/gays/women and those of atheists. No one here proposed they were exactly the same – do you understand that? You’re arguing against a proposition that no one made. And I don’t know why, because it’s very clear.

But that does not mean atheists suffer no discrimination, it does not mean we’re being “too defensive” when we protest our social status, and it doesn’t give you the right to be so dismissive. It’s goddamned obnoxious to be lectured to for committing the crime of comparing ourselves to blacks in the Jim Crow era when we haven’t done that. It’s equally irritating that you imply (and oh yes, you do) we’re bitching too much because we don’t have it that bad.

That’s what I get out of your writing. If it’s not what you meant, then think and write more clearly.

BenSix: There isn’t legally mandated discrimination; that doesn’t mean the bigotry isn’t structural. There is no law saying that the president of the United States must be male, but it’s not chance that all of them so far have been. Ditto Christian, and consider the ways that the people who want to claim Obama isn’t a legitimate president keep claiming that he isn’t “really” a Christian. Nor are there explicit rules against a lesbian, bisexual, or gay president. When there’s that much bigotry in a culture, and that much privilege for people in specific groups, there don’t need to be explicit laws saying that they’re the only ones who get a chance at certain things. A candidate might, at this point, overcome one of those: we have a black president, and women are being take seriously as candidates. An Asian-American bisexual atheist? Not likely.

(“Relaxes abortion laws” hasn’t done American women much good: yes, we will now fund charitable organizations that also provide abortions overseas, but it’s getting harder and harder for American women to get legal abortions, and to get help paying for them. Or have you missed the attacks on Planned Parenthood, the bans on covering abortion in the health care “reform” bill, and proposals that any woman who has a miscarriage should be investigated to make sure it really was accidental?)

Exactly Vicki, thank you. We’re veering dangerously close to pre Roe days. Some of my friends are thinking of starting a goddamned Jane collective again – because women in so many states can’t physically get to an abortion clinic because there are none. It beggars belief.

Yes, BenSix, you do sound like a concern troll, so why do you do it? Like you, I am not American and have the good fortune to live in a country (Japan) where people – apart from some odd cults, usually Christian or Buddhist – generally do not care very much about what your religious beliefs are or whether you have any at all; but what surely is important in the States is the way American history and the nature of its democracy and its institutions have conspired to make things less than easy (shall we say?) for atheists. American atheists surely have every right to protest, and every right to protest about the irresponsible practices of blithely undiscerning people like Christ Stedman and ‘whupass’ MacLaren, with her extraordinary and unjustified arrogance and pitiful ignorance.

Andrew Lovley: de Toqueville has some interesting things to say about religion and American democracy, and Scott Atran, in his most recent book, goes into the question, from, it must be said, a very anti-Gnu-atheist position; Atran certainly raises some interesting points, but in the end, it seemed to me, he justifies the existence of certain social practices and beliefs merely because they have or had some sort of rationale. However, I certainly agree with him that it is important to try to understand why religion plays such an important part in American life.

You’re the one who’s cast this as some sort of contest between the struggles of blacks/gays/women and those of atheists. No one here proposed they were exactly the same – do you understand that?

Pardon, but the point I was addressing was this…

Long after blacks and Jews have made great strides, and even as homosexuals gain respect, acceptance and new rights, there is still a group that lots of Americans just don’t like much: atheists.

Not “exactly the same”, perhaps, but very similar.

But that does not mean atheists suffer no discrimination, it does not mean we’re being “too defensive” when we protest our social status…

You’re misunderstanding what I mean by defensiveness. I agree that people have good reason to feel terribly aggrieved by the abuse of atheists that – as you seem to be suggesting – is commonplace in some parts of America. The “defensiveness” comment was aimed at the idea (which, I admit, is only my perception of things) that every broadside against “new atheists” isn’t just tedious but positively threatening, when, as far as I can see, the ones that are just vulgar smearing – McLaren, or Michael Ruse’s tag-team partner – are almost as effectual as butterflies in a hurricane. Coyne, Myers and (at a rough guess) Benson – not to mention Harris or Dawkins – have far bigger audiences!

But, and now I must backpedal like Lance Armstrong in bizarro world, I didn‘t know about the states that bar atheists from authority. Clearly, then, there is institutional prejudice. The idea that they’d enforce such an archaic piece o’ trash seems quite incredible to me but, hey, clearly my knowledge of the States is thinner than I’d thought. (And, yes, the smell you’re picking up is a great big humble pie that I should wrap my chops around.)

Tim –

I wasn’t consciously trolling, it was more that I realised my view was irrelevant enough – as neither an atheist nor an American – that I should never have tried to express it and wasn’t going to without coming across like an Immanuel Kant.

Hope you’re okay in Japan, by the way. I’d love to have been there to see the cherry blossom.

In fact, the McLaren’s of the world are actually more effective than you’d think. Atheist phobia is so socially acceptable in public that the attack from within strengthens that social sanction against us. You’d be flabbergasted at the sort of things people get away with saying about atheists every day on the biggest TV channels and largest-circulation newspapers in the country. Literally – if such things were said about any other minority people would drop their glasses onto the floor in stunned silence. This has a very profound effect indeed on the careers, family and social lives of many atheists in America.

And yes, those laws are unenforceable, but that doesn’t stop people from trying to use them. Last year, some asshole in one of the Southern states invoked the state’s constitutional ban on atheists holding public office to file suit against a gentleman running for the local council. Yes, the court threw it out, but the point is it never should have happened. The candidate should never have had to waste his time and money defending himself. And newspapers should never have polled their readers asking “Should atheists be allowed to run for office?” And yeah, they did. The unthinkable is quite common here stateside.

Yes, the cherry blossom was nice, although I prefer the earlier plum blossom! But over the past few weeks (there have been well over 400 aftershocks since the original event – forgive me the euphemism), it has been a bit like living with the Greek conceit that earthquakes are caused by Poseidon in the form of a bull; it has been rather like living on top of a huge, well-muscled and unpredictable beast.

And yes, those laws are unenforceable, but that doesn’t stop people from trying to use them. Last year, some asshole in one of the Southern states invoked the state’s constitutional ban on atheists holding public office to file suit against a gentleman running for the local council. Yes, the court threw it out, but the point is it never should have happened.

The state was North Carolina, and the gentleman is named Cecil Bothwell.

I’d also point out that the North Carolina state-constitutional provision (like the similar provisions in several other states’ constitutions) is only as unconstitutional as five conservative Catholics named John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, and Samuel Alito say it is. How far do you trust those jerks? (On this particular issue, I’d say I trust them a fair amount; it’s a matter of direct and long-established precedent. But who can be entirely confident?)

Then, it’s worth noting that the very fact that those constitutional passages are still on the books its itself offensive, whether they’re enforceable or not. Consider an analogous case (which also applies to a category I belong to): a number of Southern states had anti-miscegenation provisions in their state statutes and/or state constitutions when the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated all of those provisions in Loving v. Virginia in 1967. What became of the invalid provisions in state law? Well, it took quite a while in some states, but by 2000, when Alabama finally amended its constitution to remove the anti-miscegenation language, they had all been deleted.

Well, Torcaso v. Watkins invalidated all “atheists can’t hold public office” laws in 1961, six years beforeLoving… and yet the laws are still on the books in Arkansas, Maryland (the state that the Torcaso case arose from), Mississippi, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Texas. I believe that some number of states have removed similar laws since 1961, though I don’t know which or how many.

When atheists raise the point about state laws barring atheists from holding public office, that’s routinely dismissed as meaningless because Torcaso makes those laws unenforceable. And (with the above caveat about the five jerks) that’s true. But it was also true from 1967-2000 regarding anti-miscegenation laws… and yet millions of people, during that time period, found the very existence of those provisions offensive enough to mount serious political campaigns to delete them. Oddly enough, that doesn’t seem to be the case regarding the provisions regarding atheists in those seven states. One wonders why.

By the way, neither Bothwell nor California Congressman Pete Stark, to my knowledge, has ever called himself an atheist. They’ve both admitted (heh) that they don’t believe in gods—but even they aren’t willing to put on the scarlet “A.” Their political enemies, of course, have not been so hesitant to pin it on ’em.

Also, Bothwell and Stark are both Unitarian Universalists. Which means that when the American Religious Identification Survey counts up us “None”s, those two aren’t among them. I.e., to my knowledge there are zero (out-of-the-closet) “None”s in American government. …Even though we’re nearly 20% of the populace.

As far as I can tell, both Bothwell and Stark are good enough people and admirable public servants—but, as far as shining atheist Heroes Of Government go, they’re notably weak tea.

Another reason for widespread dislike of atheists is America’s broad streak of anti-intellectualism. Many people think atheists believe themselves to be smarter and better educated than most; the “public face” of atheism for many in America consists of people who actually ARE more intelligent and informed than they are. “A” students, academics, experts and other such “egghead” types have long met with distain from those who think their own “common sense” (but erroneous) beliefs are looked down upon by such “smarty-pants” “elites.”

Core blimey, – very glad to live in a place or places where you don’t wear your belief, or lack of such, as a badge (Norway, Australia, Canada in my case). And it is never an issue in any practical situation. There are some traditions, but very few assign any wider significance to those, more like old rituals. In these countries, being openly religious usually means being somewhat intellectually impaired, as indeed seems to be the case with US American godbots. Just that the ‘somewhat’ doesn’t apply.

If we were to give Chris Stedman benefit of the doubt, and believe that he is playing good cop to our bad cop, wouldn’t it behoove us to berate him less, and spend more time focusing on pedophile priests, immoral ministers, and other religious problems? Remember, good cop bad cop only works if you understand that you’re both working towards the same goal (the one thing Stedman and I can absolutely agree upon is that we want to help create a world where atheists are not persecuted or discriminated against in any way), even if it appears like you’re working at cross purposes. Let’s try to keep the friendly fire to a minimum and see if the situation improves on all sides. Call it an experiment.

I’m pretty sure this really rather minor disagreement could be swiftly resolved over a pint and an in-person conversation. If you find yourself in Cambridge, do look us up Ophelia, and I’ll set up a 3-way conversation with Chris. Stedman.

Perhaps, Mr Figdor, it might behove Chris Stedman not to publish with his imprimatur foolish and dishonest scribblings such as those of Whupass MacLaren. It also might behove Mr Stedman to address properly the criticisms that have been made and to have the courtesy to reply to those of us who have asked him to say why he thinks Whupass MacLaren’s piece was worth running on his blog. I suspect that that would be more satisfying, and edifying, for everybody than sentimental pints all round.

Anyone who, like me, has spent anytime on share dealing forums can understand how atheists can become so irrationally hated.

People can become so emotionally bonded to the companies that they invest in that they refuse to listen to contradictory opinions. Even with the evidence of bad news and falling share price it is often not sufficient to convince the investor that their original decision was not the correct one, and the investor will often cling on to that until the bitter end. If you want vitriol, visit one of these forums and read some of the comments where people hold different opinions on a company, and may even hold a different position, long or short. It can get very nasty. What is also amusing to note is that people who hold shares will refuse to hear opposing views one minute, but once they have sold their views can turn around in a moment.

We cannot underestimate the enormous emotional “investment” that people make in their beliefs. Atheists are a constant reminder to them that this “investment” is worthless.

Remember, good cop bad cop only works if you understand that you’re both working towards the same goal….

I very much agree, and I’ve said precisely that before.

I think it remains undemonstrated, though, that Stedman actually is working toward the same goals as Gnus are. I appreciate that discrimination against atheists is something he disapproves of, but that seems fairly obviously an epiphenomenon of some much more fundamental problems with the American societal discourse, especially discourse about religion.

With regard to atheists’ civil rights, we should of course take all the allies we can get. (Which absolutely does not obligate us to shut up about those allies’ religious ideas, though it does imply that it makes tactical sense to set our objections aside in limited times and places.) Same goes for fighting creationism in schools, the broader defense of the wall of separation between church and state, and a bunch of other issues.

But given the central Gnu critique of/attempt to discredit religious faith, authority, and privilege, I don’t see Stedman (or just about any religious believer) on board. And without that, there’s not much to build the “good cop/bad cop” alliance on.

There are several very interesting hypotheses on this thread about where Americans’ atheophobia comes from. More than one of them sounds awfully plausible. I wonder if research has done on the subject; I suppose this University of Minnesota study (PDF) is sort of relevant, but I don’t remember how directly on point it is. (Honestly, I’m too tired to give it another read with that in mind.)

Jonathan Figdor, if Chris Stedman is serious about opening a dialogue then how about him showing us that he can move an inch in our direction. He seems open to the idea of guest posts on his blog.

How about Chris having a guest post from a representative of the gnu side?

If I may be so bold I’d like to suggest a joint post by Rieux and Paul W – two Butterflies and Wheels regulars that have shown a firm grasp of the issues and who are not (currently) being held up as prime examples of the gnastiness of gnus – as Ophelia and Jerry Coyne seem to be regarded by the goodies.

Such a post could address some issues that are avoided or misconstrued by the accomodationist side –

for example,

Is it OK to ask for evidence that supports religious claims?

If religious people feel that such questions are offensive then should you avoid asking such questions?

What do gnus think about the right of people to be religious?

What do gnus think about the right of people to raise their children as religious?

Is mocking a non-evidence backed religious claim the same thing as mocking someone that believes or makes that claim?

Re: Univ of Minnesota paper. It’s a popularly cited study, though an observation I had forgotten.

We demonstrate that increasing acceptance of religious diversity does not extend to the nonreligious

[…]

Rather than treating atheists as akin to other out-groups, we reveal the unique social and cultural bases underlying attitudes toward this group, leading us to rethink some core assumptions about Americans’ increasing acceptance of religious diversity and to consider how the weakening of internal boundaries between religious groups may heighten awareness of the external boundary between the religious and the nonreligious.

In 19th- and 20th-century America, Examples of institutional prejudice against atheists / non-believers in U. S. state law was not limited to the public-office-ineligibility laws that remain on the books (to be cited by Christian bigots) despite their unconstitutionality. Until the last 3 or 4 decades, the [courtroom] rules of evidence in a large majority of U. S. states either prohibited non-believers from giving sworn testimony in court or permitted evidence of their non-belief to be used to generally impeach (attack) their credibility.

I am grateful that those rules are generally gone (In my State of residence the rule now says “Evidence of the beliefs or opinions of a witness on matters of religion is not admissible for the purpose of showing that by reason of their nature, the witness’s credibility is impaired or enhanced.”) But new rules like this one does not (no surprise) stop lawyers from asking an impermissible question so that the jury may be influenced by hearing it before an objection is sustained (the so-called “evidentiary harpoon,” where the “barbs” on the question prevent the damage or the desired effect from being completely undone). And in my home state, as recently as 2005, in a child custody case, an appellate court upheld a trial court that permitted extensive questioning of the mother abbout the beliefs she held as a Jehovah’s witness. Pawlik v. Pawlik, http://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/archive/03080501.ehf.html. It would be (and in fact, has been) just as easy to question atheist litigants in child custody cases about their non-belief.

Let’s hear more about atheists of the past who were persecuted and fought back.

In Northampton, there’s a statue to Charles Bradlaugh, elected to parliament, but refused a seat because he wouldn’t swear on the Bible. The electors of Northampton chose him again. Same result. And again. In the end the parliamentary authorities caved in.

Bradlaugh was a good and decent man, with a fine record on women’s rights and the rights of Indians. Why isn’t he a household name?

Wouldn’t it be more representative to divide us atheists in ‘atheists’ and ‘anti-theists’?

The latter being those who never miss an opportunity to tell theists and believers how daft they AND their beliefs are. Usually in no uncertain terms. And also suggesting that the believers should concentrate more on getting a life (fully justified, at that!). An atheist then is just somebody to whom gods and the associated superstitions are without interest.

This ‘gnu’-thingie is amusing, but not very accurate. R.G. Ingersoll, my unbeliever great hero, was very much like the gnus, although slightly tempered compared to today’s. But that was to stay out of jail, methinks.

The reason people hate atheists is simple ignorance, and it is our own damn fault.

We have no outreach directed toward the majority of believers, who, remember, are pretty simple minded folk. For them, religion means the blessings of Faith, Hope, Charity, Morality and Love. They, not having any exposure to the actual tenets, view atheism as being anti-<i>Church</i>, and therefore believe that atheists are hopeless, uncharitable, immoral haters. And why would they not believe this?

Atheism has almost no outreach to these people’s media – which means television and AM talk radio. We need our own Bill Donohue representing the Atheist League. Wherever Donohue is on media, our guy should have a (well-deserved, I might add) seat at the table.

We also do not have kind of public charitable face. If we want people to view us as being as charitable, moral, and loving as they consider themselves to be, just maybe we should have an overt public agenda of charitable acts? For heaven’s sake, we – the non religious – are 20% of the population, a statistic that will only increase for quite some time. That makes us the second-largest religious denomination in the country. If we deserve that seat at the table, do we not have a moral responsibility to have an organized public face doing our share of public good at this point?

I think a lot of the opprobrium heaped on atheists in this country is due to the targeted vilification of atheism during the Cold War. Alongside suspected ‘Communists’ and gays, atheists were vilified as anti-American and Red sympathizers. This image has been continually reinforced by the religious right in a concerted campaign to push secularism off the table as a respected political opinion. It has been a long, pernicious and extremely well-organized campaign, and Americans are STILL suffering the consequences.

On the other hand, there is some intereesting evidence that atheists – as long as they don’t use that TERM – are not necessarily more disliked than some other groups. The large sociological studies underpinning ‘American Grace’ seemed to show that the ‘nonreligious’ were more distrusted than average, but not more distrusted than trusted, and more trusted than many other groups, like Muslims and Mormons (I’m remembering the statistics without the book in front of me so this might not be precisely accurate).

This evidence does NOT mean that there isn’t real distrust and discrimination against atheists in this country – I’m VERY concerned about the political discrimination, particularly. But it does mean we may have to nuance our understanding of the issue. It MAY be that the WORD ‘atheist’ is throwing the statistics somewhat compared to people’s real experience. Of course, there should be nothing wrong with that word. But if there is, we should be aware of that when we look at polling numbers.

If we were to give Chris Stedman benefit of the doubt, and believe that he is playing good cop to our bad cop, wouldn’t it behoove us to berate him less, and spend more time focusing on pedophile priests, immoral ministers, and other religious problems?

Are you kidding me, Jonathan? The entire point of this dust-up is that Stedman and friends aren’t giving us the benefit of the doubt. Woudn’t it behoove him to berate us less? Wouldn’t it behoove him to focus less on how awful gnu atheists are? Seriously – we didn’t provoke this. How can you not see that?

John F – really, why do you think “this really rather minor disagreement could be swiftly resolved over a pint and an in-person conversation”? What would be different in person and over a pint? Chris thinks McLaren’s guest post was not hostile to new atheists. I think that’s a ridiculous thing to think – and that it’s symptomatic of a very strong cognitive bias. I don’t know why that would change in person.

Maybe you think that because Chris is a charmer? But I’m not, so that’s no help.

Regarding Atheists outreach to TV and Am Radio. Given the hateful view of Atheists much of these media often themselves perpetuate in or at least consciously overlook, what makes you think an Atheist spokesperson would ever be allowed to oppose some one like Donohue or any other of the multitude of Atheist haters and liars.

The most obvious case in point being the P.Z.Myer’s “Crackergate” affair. Donohue was give many opportunities to spout his lies and hate, but I am not aware of any case where P.Z. was invited on the same segment or shortly after to present an opposing view.

Many Atheists would be happy to engage in your suggested outreach but are almost never given the opportunity to do so.

I cannot agree that this failure of outreach is the fault of Atheists not being aware of or not trying to engage (as Sara terms it) the lame stream media.

How do you think Bill Donohue initially got onto TV and radio? He didn’t sit at home and wait for the phone to ring.

We are 20% of the US population and have virtually zero lobbying or media presence, no real umbrella organization, almost nonexistant fundraising, and not even a political agenda. Of course we are not asked to go onto TV. That’s my point.

I sense that most religious people can accept someone who does not profess their faith – divisions among denominations and other religions serve to test their personal convictions all the time – but that they are apprehensive toward a group they know little-to-nothing about.

Some time ago I commented on my Facebook page that secularism and church/state separation as a matter of policy benefited everyone. I got a response from a family member that “religion” in the constitution referred to Christianity, that removing Christianity from places like public schools and other government arenas would cause this country to fall harder and faster than the Roman Empire. He also said that while Christianity has many sects, the commonality is that Jesus died for our sins as a sacrifice from God.

This suggests to me that a dislike and distrust of atheists, at least for some, is not a matter of simple ignorance of atheist views and people. Accepting people who don’t share your faith seems to go only so far when someone is denying something like Jebus.

Is this representative of all Christians? No, I don’t think it is. Do I think it’s representative of more than just certain members of my family? Yes, I suspect it is.

I think a lot of the opprobrium heaped on atheists in this country is due to the targeted vilification of atheism during the Cold War. Alongside suspected ‘Communists’ and gays, atheists were vilified as anti-American and Red sympathizers. This image has been continually reinforced by the religious right in a concerted campaign to push secularism off the table as a respected political opinion. It has been a long, pernicious and extremely well-organized campaign, and Americans are STILL suffering the consequences.

@Ophilia #75 You ask “Why do you think “this really rather minor disagreement [with Chris Stedman] could be swiftly resolved over a pint and an in-person conversation”? What would be different in person and over a pint?”

Don’t want to answer of John’s behalf, but my view is that a lot of the disagreement on this site between so-called “accomodationists” and so-called “Gnu Atheists” is down to a sense that each is out to attack the other. This sense having-been established, people seem to read posts from “the other side” in the most negative possible light without giving the reader much of a chance to make their point and without granting them any benefit of the doubt. So, on both sides, the posts come off as more aggressive and mean-spirited than they were intended when written. I certainly think I’ve experienced this with my comments here, and people posting at my site may have experienced it from me!

In person a whole slew of symbolic resources are available to allow you to judge a person’s tone, such as facial expressions; vocal tone, intonation, speed, attack, timbre etc.; frequency and nature of eye-contact; bodily positioning; body language; and physical touch.

At the very least this should allow you to get more data on whether his position is meant as an attack or an honest critique. Most people are only good at consciously controlling a few of their non-verbal cues, so there’s not much chance he could game you, and let me tell you something – Chris is the easiest person to read I know – his heart is absolutely on his sleeve.

Finally, when you’ve heard someone speak, you can begin to read their written words in their own voice. I’ve always found this helpful in judging the tone of an article. I think this fact might explain to some degree why some religious people, who of course don’t listen to Dawkins, Hitchens et al much if at all, find their writing so much more aggressive than we do – they put a different voice on them. This makes a huge difference.

Anyway, geeky response to a simple question but I study the way symbolic languages function and interact, so this is a great area of interest to me!

There’s a book about the digital age called “Alone Together” which I haven’t read but mention because I like the title.

For millions of years humans (and their precursors) have interacted one way, and for a decade or so humans have been interacting another way. When our only contact with our interlocutors is through the computer, things tend to get a little strange. When are left to stew in our own thoughts in front of a machine, lacking the cues from face-to-face conversation which we have evolved as a means of understanding one another, the outcome is seldom a meeting of the minds. More often the result is further separation with, and often vilification of, so-called critics.

I suspect if this discussion took place in meatspace then it would have turned out differently. I’ve read Karla’s piece and I’m pretty sure she didn’t intend it the way Ophelia has taken it. I’m pretty sure, at least, that the disagreement (if there even is one!) would not have this negative personal element to it.

Wikipedia contributors have “evolved” a means to counteract this problem: their motto is “assume good faith”. Since most Internetting activities lack (sometimes crucial) personal cues, that motto needs to be more widely considered.

I tend to be fairly eirenic, but I really do not think, pace James Croft, that Karla McLaren’s piece can be characterised as an ‘honest critique’, and as to her intentions, she states in a comment that it was to ‘whupass’. It may well be true that she didn’t expect the piece to be taken so seriously, but that is another matter. But perhaps James Croft and Sam Waldron could explain to us what her real intentions were.

Since I am unsure whether Ms McLaren would consider me a secondary or tertiary New Atheist, I do not know whether she brought enough cans of whupass for me to have one. But I do hope so. Especially after a long hike, I find whupass goes down well with a bottle of Tsingtao and a bit of naan bread.

@Tim 83: “I really do not think, pace James Croft, that Karla McLaren’s piece can be characterised as an ‘honest critique’,”

you will notice, if you read what I wrote, that I do not seek to defend that particular post in my response. I have previously expressed my disagreement with McLaren’s piece. My point was in response to John Figdor and Ophelia’s exchange regarding the value of face to face discussion. This is made entirely clear in my post. I’m not sure where you got this idea that I was specifically talking about McLaren’s piece.

@86: heaven forbid that we should think your comments were in some way relevant to the topic of the post. Did you really think Ophelia was asking what the benefit of face to face communication is generically, without special reference to this particular discussion?

Yes, slightly sloppy perhaps, Mr Croft, and I conflated your calming remarks with Waldron’s, but since you know Chris Stedman so well, and since you suggest he is wonderfully open (he wears his his heart on his sleeve, you say), I wonder if you could as him why he has neither defended McLaren’s piece nor attempted to explain his intentions in printing it? Not of all us, after all, live conveniently close to wherever CS happens to live.

my view is that a lot of the disagreement on this site between so-called “accomodationists” and so-called “Gnu Atheists” is down to a sense that each is out to attack the other.

Really?

It seems to me that the accomodationists are not simply defending themselves from attack but are rather taking up the cause of defending liberal religionists from the possibility of offense.

Have I got it wrong here? Has the whole “Don’t Be A Dick” policy not been one of advocating others to refrain from using certain tactics (mockery, pointing out factual ignorance etc) when dealing with certain target groups?

Remember, it’s not the tactics themselves that are wrong or beyond the pale – Phil Plait and his accomodationist friends are not above using mockery when dealing with some groups (anti vaccination, moon landing hoaxers) even some religious groups (creationists).

The history of the gnu/accomodationist argument is the idea, promoted by Nisbett and Mooney, that atheistic scientists should not be involved in public advocacy of evolution and that only religious (or religion friendly) scientists should be the public face of evolution advocacy. There was no reciprocal call for religious scientists (like Miller and Collins) to refrain from promoting evolution. There might be a lot of back and forth now (although it seems much more a case of a public attack of gnus somewhere like the HuffPo or the Guardian, followed by a lot of annoyed postings on the gnu blogs. There is really little direct dialog between the two sides. The accomodationists are writing for the liberal religious “interfaith” audience and the gnus are writing for our own internal community.

I’m looking forward to the World Tour during which Mr Steadman will explain to the rest of us what he really means. It might be quicker though, if we all work harder and faster to ensure that everybody knows the world revolves around him.

James – come on – I’m not an idiot; I know that in person interaction works differently from written words. I don’t need that explained to me. That wasn’t the question. The question was how would that difference change anything in this particular case. In fact I addressed the fact that in person interaction is different, with my little joke about charm. To restate: I get that Chris is likable; I don’t dispute that; what I don’t get is what difference that would make with regard to this blog post, which he endorsed in glowing terms. It’s a nasty, bigoted, demonizing post. Generalizations about each side seeing the other as hostile don’t change that – not by themselves. If you have something to say that can show the post was not nasty and bigoted and demonizing, by all means say it. But grand overarching statements aren’t going to do it.

Chris seems to want to have the best of both worlds – he wants to position himself as The Nice Kind of Atheist in contrast to the Nasty Kind of Atheist, and at the same time to be loved (or, failing that, ignored) by the people he positions as the Nasty Kind. That’s not going to happen. I’m not going to love him while he is energetically engaged in positioning himself at the expense of People Like Me – my team, if you like.

You seem (at the moment – you didn’t a day or two ago) to want something similar – you want the people Chris demonizes to love (or ignore) him anyway. That’s a bizarre and unreasonable thing to want.

I also don’t like this “teach the controversy” crap – this “you’re both biased against each other” crap. Bollocks. I don’t write post after post after post generalizing about an enemy group – I write specific posts about specific articles or posts, saying specifically what is wrong with them. What I do is better than what McLaren did with Chris’s approval. It’s not a case of a plague on both your houses. We argue and provide evidence that can be checked; McLaren did no such thing.

The amount of siege mentality and hyperbole here is astounding. Demonizing? Hostile? Nasty? Bigoted? That is just ridiculous. Let’s be clear – does NonProphet Status regularly have authors / commenters refer to anyone as idiots? Does NonProphet Status incessantly feature amateur and derogatory psychoanalysis of those of whom regulars there disagree with? Care to guess where that does happen on the regular?

Oh get a grip, Andrew. Those adjectives modify one post. How is that a siege mentality? Don’t be so ridiculous. I’m not under any illusions that I’m under siege, and I didn’t say I was! I said McLaren’s post was nasty, bigoted, and demonizing. I’ve quoted selections from it that certainly illustrate that. Don’t just shout; explain why the post was not nasty, bigoted, and demonizing.

Ophelia, you made the claim that it was nasty, bigoted, and demonizing. The onus is on you to prove it. Perhaps you can point out where McLaren’s claims are baseless and wrong. But I think you have to make a huge stretch to demonstrate that they were nasty, bigoted, and demonizing.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, except that some are more equal than others, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Gnus with extreme prejudice, in print, but preferably with high powered hunting rifles. D’oh.

Okay, that is justified to be upset with the term “bomb-makers”. Granted it was metaphorical, referring to the aggressiveness / destructive power of the polemic. And from what I can tell, she believe there’s a use, albeit a limited one, of the polemic, or bombs, or the polemicist, or the bomb-maker. Perhaps she should have chose a better metaphor that couldn’t be construed as analogizing a polemicist to a terrorist.

Ophelia, you made the claim that it was nasty, bigoted, and demonizing. The onus is on you to prove it.

Then I suggest you review the comments on McLaren’s post, starting with Stephen Goeman’s. There is ample evidence and reasoning presented in that thread to support Ophelia’s claim. Here, for example, is how my offering in the thread went:

This article amounts to a series of ludicrous and offensive misrepresentations—of the “Fractious Four” (what an insulting sobriquet), of their books, of the current state of Gnu Atheism, and of the preening superiority of Ms. McLaren’s supposed approach to “creat[ing] a workable, inclusive community” among atheists. I have a hard time understanding how anyone with an actual interest in creating such a community could write such a demeaning and inaccurate attack on people who deserve none of the bile served to them here.

As an initial matter, the notion that the “Fractious Four”‘s work uniformly consists of “deeply emotional appeal[s] made not just with anger, but with rage” is an absurd falsehood. Dennett’s Breaking the Spell is no polemic, as McLaren concedes (making her decision to include Dennett in her “Fractious Four” insult hard to fathom); meanwhile, Harris’s The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation bear no resemblance to the “rage”y description—and the notion that Dawkins’ The God Delusion is an “emotional appeal made not just with anger, but with rage” is a damnable lie. Only Hitchens’ god is not Great contains an ounce of the animus that McLaren pretends suffuses the writing of Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris alike. (The idea that God Delusion or End of Faith “put th[eir] ideas forward at the end of a fist, and in a way that questions the sanity and morality of anyone who disagrees with them” is yet another offensive falsehood.)

Shame on McLaren for so thoroughly misrepresenting the nature of the works she attacks.

Second, McLaren’s account of Gnus’ criticism of accommodationists like Stedman is, once again, woefully dishonest. Statements like “atheists who aren’t offended by religion, or who actively work to understand and communicate with religious people, are branded pejoratively as ‘accommodationists’” is a brutal falsehood. The actual critique of accommodationism from “The Four,” as well as from P.Z. Myers, Jerry Coyne, Ophelia Benson and many other Gnus, has nothing to do with anyone failing to be “offended by religion, or … actively work[ing] to understand and communicate with religious people.” No honest reporter of the disagreements between Gnus and accommodationists could possibly publish such an absurd synopsis of the Gnu critique; it would appear that McLaren hasn’t the slightest idea of what that critique actually is.

Finally, the arrogant presumption that Gnus, unlike the superior McLaren and Stedman, are incapable of community building is belied by the huge and burgeoning real-life Gnu-ish communities that exist and that are growing all over the atheist world. We who are not restricted by McLaren’s myopia, in which there is nothing to Gnu Atheism other than “rage”y polemic, find community in innumerable local and national nontheist organizations, in addition to Pharyngula and richarddawkins.net and Why Evolution is True and Butterflies and Wheels and Daylight Atheism and Evolutionblog and Greta Christina’s Blog and Friendly Atheist and a hundred other smaller haunts. McLaren’s ignorance of every aspect of Gnu Atheism besides the “polemic” she pretends that Gnus’ ordinary criticism of religion constitutes simply blinds her to the overwhelming reality of the very real Gnu community that exists right now.

McLaren, like so many accommodationists, has distinguished herself by publishing harsh, unsupported, and dishonest attacks directed at atheists. How anyone so disinterested in painting an honest picture of who we are, what we believe, and what we do thinks that she can retain the credibility to build a community that includes thousands of atheists she has just smeared escapes me.

As McLaren notes, there are proper uses for outrage and polemic. One such use is to express the proper opprobrium toward dishonest attacks on innocent people. Shame on you, Ms. McLaren.

And, as the thread demonstrates, I was anything but alone in stating (and substantiating) those kinds of criticisms.

I didn’t (and I’m not sure whether the other critics on the thread did) use the specific words “nasty,” “bigoted,” or “demonizing,” but they’re all perfectly cogent formulations of the content of several of the criticisms we stated and supported on that thread. Not sure how you missed it, Andrew.

Perhaps she should have chose a better metaphor that couldn’t be construed as analogizing a polemicist to a terrorist.

Do you think that anybody describing her “whupass” (her term) diatriabe as “idiotic” literally meant that it was written by a literal idiot, incapable of dressing herself in the morning?

Why are you so quick to note the merely “metaphorical” nature of the one, but not the other?

I find it very interesting how very little accommodationists care about people frequently calling us things we are clearly not—e.g. “fundamentalists,” and now even “bomb makers”—and how much they enjoy ignoring our actual positions and arguments while incinerating straw persons.

Apparently it’s okay to play up common and grotesquely negative stereotypes of us, but if we say the sorts of obviously metaphorical things people say all the time–e.g., metaphorically describing something thats very bad as “idiotic,” we’re just terribly uncivil.

When you start objecting to people calling us fundamentalist atheists, or even bomb-makers without needing prompting, maybe I’ll start taking your commitment to civil discourse a little bit seriously.

Andrew, you’re a hypocrite, and you may not notice, but we do. It’s rather sickening.

I’m not going to engage in a long defense of my post, but I’ll just say that I do think it was relevant to the question Ophelia posed and it is a topic of great interest to me, so I took the opportunity to offer my opinion. Take it as a meta-comment on the nature of discussions here and on other atheist sites, if you like. I think that it is relevant to the nature of these conversations which, from my perspective, never really advance anyone’s position. I think it behooves us to question why that is. The differences between online and face-to-face interaction might just have something to do with it.

I will respond to is this, in #94:

“You seem (at the moment – you didn’t a day or two ago) to want something similar – you want the people Chris demonizes to love (or ignore) him anyway. That’s a bizarre and unreasonable thing to want.”

Again, I don’t see what in my post makes you think that I want that. I didn’t say anything remotely like it. This is an example of precisely the phenomenon I was pointing out – it seems like your prior assumptions have got the better of you and you’ve read something in my post that simply isn’t there. As I said in that post, and before I agree with the critique of McLaren’s post. I also don’t thikn you’re an idiot. My enthusiasm to talk about symbolic languages (the very reason I stayed at Harvard to study!) got the better of me and I provided a comment which I’m sure is news to nobody. But I still think it’s relevant to the broad discussion about how we discuss these issues!

James – ok, I’ll try to explain why I thought that. (I’m aware of the possibility of what you point out, of course – at least I hope it’s of course.)

It’s because of the second para of your comment (# 80). It’s this part:

a lot of the disagreement on this site between so-called “accomodationists” and so-called “Gnu Atheists” is down to a sense that each is out to attack the other. This sense having-been established, people seem to read posts from “the other side” in the most negative possible light without giving the reader much of a chance to make their point and without granting them any benefit of the doubt. So, on both sides, the posts come off as more aggressive and mean-spirited than they were intended when written.

That doesn’t fit with the nature of McLaren’s post. Therefore, I tried to figure out why you said it. You say I got that wrong; ok; but do you see why I was trying to figure out why you said it? You didn’t say it was a meta-comment; I had no way of knowing it wasn’t meant to be about McLaren’s post. As an analysis of McLaren’s post and my response to it, it’s off-base, and that’s what I was responding to.

I also don’t really agree with the meta-comment. I think there’s a lot more bullshit on the Be Gnice side than there is on the Gnu side. I would say that, wouldn’t I; yes I know; but all the same, that is what I think. I wouldn’t write a stupidly general post like McLaren’s even on my worst day. I can list an army of gnus who wouldn’t. On the other side, by contrast, stupidly general posts and articles are the norm. We do it better. Yes I know how that sounds, but all the same…we do.

Well, I should correct one thing – it’s not true that I had no way of knowing the comment wasn’t about McLaren’s post. It is written as a generalization, so that was a way of knowing it wasn’t limited to McLaren’s post. That was in tension with the fact that its timing and location made it seem to be about McLaren’s post. That aspect still seems to me to drown out the generalization language. It’s kind of like sitting next to someone at a dinner and offering a little lecture on table manners. It’s unlikely to be understood as a generalization!

Can we at least agree that some Pharyngula comments are a little, erm, far out? It’s not hard to find examples of non-gniceness there. That shouldn’t sully everyone else, but I think it does to some degree. Perhaps that is all McLaren has in mind. It would be nice to get specifics.

Can we at least agree that some Pharyngula comments are a little, erm, far out?… Perhaps that is all McLaren has in mind.

Huh? How does that make any sense? Here’s McLaren:

Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris have written polemics against religion, and true to the polemical form, they’ve taken a moral absolutist stance which asserts that religion is orders of magnitude more harmful than it is beneficial (if it is beneficial at all). [….]

The Fractious Four have put forward some very attention-grabbing ideas in a post-Twin Towers world, where many of us have seriously questioned the purpose and limits of faith and supernaturalism. However, the Four (Dennett excluded) have put those ideas forward at the end of a fist, and in a way that questions the sanity and morality of anyone who disagrees with them. But see, that’s the point of a polemic … you put forward the most extreme version of your argument, and you don’t make any room for moderating views.

There are at least two offensive and false characterizations in there—and McLaren is explicitly talking about Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris, not commenters on Pharyngula. In fact, she never mentions P.Z. Myers, Pharyngula, or even the very concept of blog commenters in her entire essay.

OMFG. It doesn’t get much more amateur and derogatory than that. (Warning: if you’re going to read it, keep the brain bleach handy.)

Apparently, it’s all about the Puritanism, which just shows how deep the author’s understanding of gnus and the history of religious thought is. Puritans? Srsly? (If he’s going to run with Nietsche, he could at least have mentioned a little precursor called Zoroastrianism. It’d still have been beyond good and evil and beyond wrong, but it could at least gotten to funny.)

Nice postmodernist turn there with global warming concerns just being a Puritan catastrophist sin metanarrative, which the oh-so-sophisticated author is evidently above. He’s got an undergraduate degree in religious history or something, so he can skip right over the pesky scientific issues, or any sociological evidence about who actually believes what, and why they actually believe it, and pontificate about why we silly Puritans just want to believe WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE for our SINS, and just can’t see that we owe our views on polar ice caps and coastal geography to passe forms of Christianity.

Oy. Too right about the brain bleach. I finally broke down and read the damn thing.

How Chris Stedman can keep claiming he’s not making a career of bashing atheists is beyond me.

(I wonder if I was as cheerfully convinced of my own omniscience at that age. I don’t think I was – I think I remember being aware that people who were older than I was had had more time to learn things. But who knows; maybe I’m kidding myself. God it’s annoying though, all these kollitch kids calling Dawkins stupid and clueless.)

Well, I was pretty convinced of my own omniscience at his age, and while I didn’t know the college-aged Ophelia, it wouldn’t surprise me if you were a bit like that too:) On the other hand, I usually recognized when I’d made a hash of things and someone older (a professor, a mentor) called me out on it and corrected me. My reaction (most of the time) was at first embarrassment at not being perfect, and then a dedication to do better. I could be romanticizing my own past, of course, but I don’t think I was so stubbornly dismissive for so long over any issue where I was getting clear pushback from a number of people older, better-educated, and more experienced.

Well my experience (like that of boomers in general) was complicated by Vietnam. That did play out as such a generational divide…It’s sort of bothered me ever since, that we got such a big jolt of Only the Yoof Understand when we were yoof ourselves – it has to have been very bad for us.

Then second wave feminism did the same thing all over again. Many many many second wave feminists were very young – and we were dead right. Oh it’s appalling!

I was an insufferable know-it-all twit in college, and benefited hugely from a few thorough ass-kickings by people who actually knew what the fuck they were talking about, and patiently proved to me that I didn’t, despite my Dunning-Kruger syndrome.

I’d been an atheist for years and years, but was—this is so embarrassing—a more-or-less Social Darwinist libertarian, with the all-too-common disrespect for “philosophy.” And for the worst reasons—I was actually somewhat sociopathic, like a lot of young people with less than fully-developed frontal lobes. Eeek.

I am eternally grateful to certain people for giving me the benefit of the doubt, and thinking that I could change my mind, despite my not especially deserving such patient intellectual potty-training. The people who dismissed as an arrogant asshole weren’t exactly wrong, and I was lucky enough to encounter a few very smart and very knowledgeable people who unaccountably put up with me enough to argue me around.

Those were formative experiences that makes me think some people do actually learn in arguments, and change their minds about important things like morality and politics and basic philosophy, even if it takes them a while to realize that the people they’re talking to are as smart as they are, and/or know more. No amount of nice liberal accommodationist framing and friendly persuasion or shaming would have done what a few telling arguments did for me. I absolutely needed to be clearly shown that I was fucking wrong, including showing that my convenient rationalizations were fucking wrong too, until I realized I wasn’t failing to win arguments because I didn’t know how to articulate my position as well as my more practiced opponents, but because I was actually seriously wrong, and had to face it.

My embarrassing thing is a kind of knee-jerk “radicalism” which somehow made me think there was something vaguely lefty and ok about for instance the IRA. It took me way too long to learn better. It also made me think (something did anyway) that Clinton was using bin Laden as the latest US Hate Object when really he was just another thug. The embassy bombings failed to kick me out of that fog of stupidity. Not that I admired bin Laden – and I was awake enough to detest the Taliban (and the mullahs in Iran and the fatwa on Rushdie) – but I thought he was trivial. Urrggh. After he killed all those people in Kenya and Tanzania…

Tch! That’s nothing. When I was young I was holier than the pope (sic), sexier than elvis, the saviour of mankind, the worlds best poet, singer, guitarist. I knew EVERYTHING about everything AND could’ve solved all the worlds problems in short order before breakfast.

Slackers!

Bit wary of the age card: but it IS striking how yooful a lot of these people are that are making a career out of slagging Gnus off. Idealists I would guess. Hey ho.

Geez. Suddenly I feel very old; I suppose I’ve got more than a decade on Mr. Luna.

My schedule today was filled by a brutal slugfest of an evidentiary hearing I had in court. My opposing counsel and I were at each other’s throats, and the star witness (my opposing party) was a real doozy: he’s a smirking crook, and it was my job to prove that he is… a smirking crook. My exchange with him on cross-examination was sort of the courtroom analog to a Jackie Chan fight scene: violent, gymnastic, and fundamentally silly. (My client loved it; she probably liked Rush Hour, too.)

So I think the Gnu-accommodationist battles are terrific practice for what I do for a living.

@Ophelia #117 Thank you for being so honest regarding your thoughts on the IRA. I remember it was a source of great discomfort and upset to me when the IRA kept bombing the bridge I used to go over to get to high school, and people from America kept popping up to support them. I was extremely confused by that at the time.